Nobody's Baby Now
Next to me at the bar was a green-dreaded hippy lass from Washington state who studies linguistics and cognitive science.
The half-hour flight from Cincinnati to Indianapolis pissed me off for being so dramatically short. The bus from Indianapolis to Bloomington pissed me off for not being marked, and the only reason why I checked to see if it was my bus is because it would have been just my luck that my bus have no signage. I was right.
George and Jason picked me up and took me to play pool at Upstairs - I won a game of cut-throat!
There was a girl who played with us then, she had a key to the table so we needed no quarters, and I didn't like her. When it was time for bed George decided to stay with the f'ugley girl and tossed me his keys. Within moments Jason and I were in our respective homes, and George discovered his pool companion was "crazy" (according to some testimonies).
I returned George his car today only to find he had left his house keys on the ring, f'ugly girl dropped him off at my place, but I awoke to no amount of pounding on my door (good to know? I think not!).
Poor George beseeched the smut peddler across the lot for some quarters to make calls where he eventually found a ride and a floor on which to crash. He went to class today wearing the "University of Tennessee Lacrosse" t-shirt he had on last night.
First day back to school, and I'm pleased to report A's on the five homework items returned to me today. These next three weeks will be fine...
Joe stayed in communication with me over the break, in his own way, with little messages from time to time, and tonight I feel soft and at ease because he was so natural around me that I was relieved to not need any guard to be up, or any confusion in trying to figure out how to act.
You know how you feel after sleeping in a cold room? As though you've been flexed the entire night? Total tension despite having been "resting"? That's how I'd been feeling after an encounter with dear Joe.
But not tonight. He hugged me for the first time in two weeks, drove me home, and he played music for me in the car (which he's never done; some mixed cd of accoustic music he'd put together, and he made me listen to Dave singing Long Black Viel: he couldn't believe I knew the song (Mike Ness sings it, too) and I couldn't believe he made me listen), and then he hugged me again, and said "goodbye" about four different ways. I must look good tonight.
I told him about George and he said that's why one does not surrender their car for a girl: he should have called us a cab. Then he teased me for being territorial and protective.
Oh, and he's very sick, too. It's not mono, but that's all he knows. I want to bake him cookies.
His friendliness tonight made me really believe that I hadn't wasted my time. Like it's full circle now.
Other circles in my life are drawn with a much larger compass which supercedes my horizon's vanishing point. Today my eyes fell violently upon a list of phone numbers I'd jotted down in the event my phone battery died: Tylere, Asit, Matthew, Kasey...
These last four months have been simpler to deal with knowing I did not have Kasey's phone number, but I do. This circle will not be left undone, I do know that. But the radius of the compass is beyond my reach and I will not attempt to imagine I'm in control of its course, or that it's in my power.
If I called then I would undo my own strength. I would invite doubt, confusion, questions, worries, and not necessarily answers. He knows I'm here, and what he's done, and what ought to be done, and how to do it. When he's ready he will, and we'll see if Michaela the scientist is too smart for his ass then!
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